Slow but Steady Progress

It's been two weeks since my last post and I feel a bit guilty about that, but the daily incremental progress seems very slow during this phase. They are working on taping and floating all the drywall in both buildings, finishing the corners that will be exposed, putting the window and door frames in place, doing the wall segments on the second floor window dormers, and making progress on the pool.

I suspect that by the end of the week the regular walls will be mostly done, including the second floor windows. The pool plumbing is mostly already done (the pipes have to be connected to the pumps and filters still, but everything is connected to the pool side of things). A lot of the rock work around the pool is done and we've identified the supplied for the propane and determined the basic location for the outdoor kitchen and the fire pit. I hope to see the propane tank and plumbing for that go in before Christmas.

Next week we may get started with putting the rock on the outside of the domes. The rock supplier came by and talked and we showed him what we were looking for, so he is currently producing the rocks for the house. These are not real rock, but cast concrete-like rocks. The estimate is 3 weeks to rock the entire outside of the domes (all three buildings).

I talked to the contractor about the driveway, sidewalks, front porch, steps, and patio and we reached some basic idea of what we are looking for, but these need to be drawn out and fully approved. Also the fence for the backyard needs to be placed. This will be seriously influenced by the location of the septic system sprinkler heads. Basically the fence cannot cut through the spray field, so it either goes in front of them keeping all the spray out of the back yard, behind them putting all the spray inside the backyard, or goes down the middle and we put two 180 degree spray heads back to back adjacent to the fence. It makes it a discrete problem of location versus a continuous one.

We have picked out the stain for the front door and they are working on the door jam to install it and then put a temporary door in place to make the house weather tight. I'm a bit surprised they have not seen this as more of a priority, since a big rain storm that blows a lot of rain in through that opening could ruin a bunch of the drywall, but that is the contractors call.

We are getting back with the decorator this week to talk more about the colors, flooring, and lights. We also have to look at kitchen layouts and library and game room cabinets, plus general closet layouts as well. The contractor would like to get these done fairly soon, so he can plan and schedule for them.